1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for printing text on a sheet of a booklet-like article in a text-printing station and to a cassette, in particular a cassette for receiving and handling a booklet-like article made of sheet-like material, as is used, for example, for identity documents, in particular passports.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In the production of identity cards, for example credit cards, bank cards, debit cards, company cards, driving licences and the like, it is known for the individual cards to be removed automatically from a feed store, to be fed to a text-printing station, for example a laser-printing station, and to be aligned, and have text printed on them, therein. Following the text-printing operation, the cards are then deposited in a receiving magazine. Such an automated text-printing apparatus can be used to produce large numbers of identity cards in a short period of time with low outlay in terms of operators.
In contrast, it is more difficult to print text on booklet-like identity documents as are often required in the form of passports. Such booklet-like identity documents, which, for the sake of simplicity, will be referred to just as passports hereinbelow, usually comprise a front and rear cover sheet, a booklet section, which is bound in therebetween and is intended for entries, as well as a sheet for receiving passport data and personal details. This sheet, which may consist, in particular, of a material suitable for laser printing, may be either a special sheet arranged beside one of the cover sheets or the cover sheet itself, which then has to have text printed on its inside.
In order to provide a passport, for example in a laser-printing station, with the passport holder's photograph, his/her personal details and a machine-readable passport identification, it is necessary for the passport to be arranged in a swung-open state in the text-printing station, such that a machine-readable passport identification can be printed in in a manner aligned precisely with respect to one side edge of the sheet which is to have text printed on it, while the personal details and the passport photograph have to be aligned with respect to a pre-printed section.
With an appropriate configuration of the text-printing station, a passport which is to have text printed on it may be positioned by hand, but this involves comparatively high outlay and requires particular care on the part of the operator since satisfactory alignment of the passport or of the sheet in the text-printing station is necessary.
Fully automatic handling of a passport in a text-printing apparatus, in the case of which the passport first of all is swung open, and then introduced into the text-printing station in swung-open state, has text printed on it in the text-printing station, and is then transported further to a removal station, is indeed conceivable, but would necessitate very high outlay in terms of automation, which is associated with considerable costs.
In contrast, the object of the invention is to provide a process by means of which booklet-like articles which are made of sheet-like material and are to have text printed on one of their insides, such as, in particular, passports and other booklet-like identity documents, can easily have text printed on them automatically. In addition, the invention also has the object of providing a cassette which can be used, in particular, for the text-printing process.
These objects are achieved by the process according to claim 1 and by the cassette according to claim 6.
As far as the process is concerned, it is thus provided, for the purpose of printing text on a booklet-like article in a text-printing station, that the booklet-like article is arranged in a swung-open state in a cassette and fed to the text-printing station, that the position in the text-printing station of the border of the sheet which is to have text printed on it is detected, as is the position of a pattern provided on the sheet which is to have text printed on it, and that the sheet has text printed on it such that some of the text is aligned with respect to the pattern and other parts of the text are aligned with respect to the sheet border.
The detection both of the position of the sheet and of the position of a pattern located thereon makes it possible, for example in the case of passports, for a machine-readable passport identification to be aligned precisely parallel to the edge of the sheet, while personal details and a photograph of the passport holder are aligned relative to the pre-printed section which explains this data. The passport identification can thus be read satisfactorily by an appropriate reader unit if the sheet is drawn through said reader unit on the edge parallel to the passport identification, while the rest of the textural and (photo-)graphic elements give an aesthetically pleasing overall impression.
The process according to the invention allows text to be printed automatically without the sheet which is to have text printed on it having to assume a fixedly predetermined position in the text-printing plane. This considerably simplifies the transportation of the passports, arranged in cassettes, from a feed magazine or the like to the text-printing station and, further, to a removal station.
The process may be configured in a particularly straightforward manner if that sheet of the booklet-like article which is to have text printed on it is arranged in the cassette such that the position of the sheet border itself can be detected. For clear detection of the sheet position, it is provided in this case that the position of the sheet border is detected at three points, the position of one edge of the sheet border being detected at two points and the position of a further edge, which is located transversely with respect to the first-mentioned edge, being detected at one point.
Another possibility of establishing the position of the sheet or the sheet border consists in that that sheet of the booklet-like article which is to have text printed on it is guided, in the cassette, by stop and retaining means into a position which is predetermined relative to the cassette, and that the position of the cassette is detected in order to determine the position of the sheet border therefrom. Although it is necessary in this case for the sheet which is to have text printed on it to be arranged in the cassette in a precisely aligned manner, this nevertheless makes it possible to simplify the position-detecting operation of the cassette. With suitable guidance of the cassette in the text-printing station, the task of detecting the sheet position could be reduced here to establishing the position of a single point of the cassette.
A particularly preferred configuration of the invention provides that some of the text is aligned both with respect to the predetermined pattern and with respect to the sheet border. This procedure means that text which is to be printed, or photographs which are to be applied, in particular in the border region of the sheet which is to have text printed on it can be oriented such that they are aligned correctly both with respect to a predetermined pattern on the sheet and with respect to the sheet border.
It is particularly advantageous if the process according to the invention uses a cassette having a base plate, which has a bearing region with a first bearing surface, and a frame, which is arranged on the base plate such that it can be released at least in part opposite the bearing region, it being the case that the first bearing surface is assigned a second bearing surface, which is offset parallel to the first bearing surface in the direction of the normals of the two bearing surfaces.
In order for the handling of the cassette according to the invention to be as straightforward as possible for the introduction of passports and the like, a preferred embodiment of the invention provides that the frame has a frame plate which is fitted on the base plate and on which a swing-action frame member or cover with a window is articulated in a pivotable manner. It is particularly preferred here if, in its closed position, in which it bears on the base plate, the swing-action frame member or cover is arranged over the second bearing surface, which is located closer to the frame, and if the window is subdivided by holding-down webs in order to retain in a planar manner a sheet of a sheet-like article, bearing on the bearing region, which is to have text printed on it.
According to the invention, the swing-action frame member or cover and the second bearing surface thus interact such that a sheet which is arranged on the second bearing surface and is to have text printed on it is forced, by the swing-action frame and in particular by the holding-down webs arranged thereon, into a defined plane, counter to stressing produced when the booklet-like article is swung open, such that the sheet which is to have text printed on it can readily be arranged in the text-printing plane of the text-printing station.
The operation of opening and closing the cassette and of swinging the swing-action cover open and shut are particularly straightforward if the swing-action frame member or cover is retained in its closed position in a releasable manner with the aid of snap-action connecting means.
In order that a passport, which usually consists of a relatively stiff material, does not have to be swung open too far by hand in order to be introduced into the cassette, the invention provides that, in its swung-open position, the swing-action frame encloses an angle of approximately 110.degree. to 150.degree., preferably of 120.degree. to 140.degree., in particular 130.degree., with the base plate. This makes it possible for the passport to be introduced into the cassette merely in a partially opened state and for the passport to be swung open fully as the swing-action frame is swung shut. It has been found here that passports and other booklet-like articles, surprisingly, can be swung open with greater care with the aid of the cassette according to the invention than by hand.
A development of the invention provides that a step with bevelled flank is provided between the first and the second bearing surfaces, the angle .alpha. between the flank and the bearing surface which is located closer to the frame being between 205.degree. and 225.degree., preferably between 210.degree. and 220.degree., in particular approximately 215.degree.. In order for the passports to be treated with as much care as possible, it is provided that the flank merges smoothly, preferably in a rounded manner, into the bearing surface which is located closer to the frame.
This achieves the situation where, even with the passport swung open to the full extent, the binding need only be swung open partially, while the cover sheet, and if appropriate the associated sheet which is to have text printed on it, need only be bent round out of its plane, by a relatively small angle, in the region beside the binding. This division of the bending action during the swinging-open operation allows careful treatment, in particular, of the binding without other parts of the passport being subjected to loading unnecessarily.
In order to ensure that a passport which is to have text printed on it is aligned precisely in the cassette according to the invention, a development of the invention provides that, on that side of the swing-action cover which is directed towards the base plate, said swing-action cover is provided, in the region of its edge which is remote from its pivot axis, with stop and retaining means in order that a sheet-like article which is to be arranged on the associated bearing surface of the bearing region can be aligned relative to the frame and/or to the base plate.
It is particularly advantageous here if the stop and retaining means are of pocket-like design, with the result that a sheet-like article introduced into the pocket is retained on the swing-action cover, and guided by the latter, as said cover pivots.
The pocket-like stop means further simplify the operation of fitting the individual cassettes according to the invention with passports or the like and, at the same time, increase the alignment accuracy of the passport in the cassette since one part of the passport need only be pushed into the appropriate receiving pocket between the bearing surface and frame plate, while the free corners of the other part, that is to say the free corners of the cover sheet, and if appropriate of the sheet which is to have text printed on it, need to be introduced into the pockets on the swing-action frame, said pockets serving as stop means. Thereafter, the swing-action frame may then be pivoted into its closed position, that sheet of the passport which is to have text printed on it being aligned precisely, while the passport itself is swung open with an extreme amount of care.
The bevelled step flank, provided with appropriate rounded sections, between the two bearing regions of the bearing surface ensures that the cover sheets of the passport cannot be buckled during the swinging-open operation and in the swung-open state.
Another preferred configuration of the invention provides that the second bearing surface is arranged in a strip-like manner over the first bearing surface, along one of the sides thereof, with the result that a sheet of a booklet-like article, bearing on the first bearing surface, which is to have text printed on it can be positioned on the second bearing surface by ways of its free edge, a receiving pocket being provided between the first and the second bearing surfaces.
This makes it possible to have a cassette which is of particularly straightforward configuration and by means of which, in particular in the case of booklet-like articles made of relatively stiff materials, the sheet which is to have text printed on it can be arranged reliably in a defined plane. In this case, the pocket-like receiving region may receive those sheets of the booklet-like article which, when the booklet-like article is in the swung-open state, are located beneath the page which is to have text printed on it. This is usually just the front cover sheet. If, however, the first side, rather than the second side, of the second sheet is to have text printed on it, then virtually all the sheets of the booklet-like article are arranged in the pocket-like receiving region, as a result of which this sheet which is to have text printed on it can be aligned in the same way as in the case in which just the cover sheet is located therebeneath.
In order, in the case of this cassette, to make it easier for the passport to be introduced and, in particular, to make it easier for the sheets which are located beneath the sheet which is to have text printed on it to be introduced into the pocket-like bearing region, it is provided that that border of the second bearing surface which projects over the first bearing surface is of convex design in plan view.
In order to simplify the use of the cassette in the case of the process according to the invention, it is provided that in its strip, which is arranged partially over the second bearing surface, the swing-action frame has monitoring windows for the detection of a sheet border, at least one monitoring window being arranged in a corner region of the swing-action frame, with the result that it is possible to detect the positions of two abutting edges of the sheet border, the second bearing surface being of contrasting colour. Since the monitoring windows provided make it possible to detect the position of the sheet at three defined points, there is no need to provide any additional guide and stop means for ensuring, in the cassette, the alignment of the sheet which is to have text printed on it. This considerably facilitates both the handling and the production of the cassette.
In order that the cassette according to the second embodiment of the invention may also advantageously be used with booklet-like articles made of relatively soft material, it is provided that a convexly arched strip can be fastened on the first bearing surface parallel to the strip-like, second bearing surface, at a distance therefrom. The convexly arched strip carefully supports the cover sheet, and the sheet which is to have text printed on it, in the same way as in the case of the first embodiment of the cassette according to the invention, stressing which causes the sheet which is to have text printed on it to be forced against the frame and the holding-down webs, which are provided in the frame window, being produced at the same time.
The cassette according to the invention thus serves for receiving a swung-open passport or the like which, positioned on the bearing region, is fixed by the frame such that, in the cassette, it can be handled, together with the cassette, in a text-printing apparatus just like an identity card.
It is thus possible for a multiplicity of passports arranged in cassettes according to the invention to be stacked in an appropriate feed magazine of a text-printing apparatus, in order for these passports to be transported automatically into the text-printing station from the feed magazine and following the text-printing operation, as is the case with identity cards, to be deposited in a receiving magazine. After this, all that is required is for the passports to be removed from the cassettes, and the empty cassettes may then be refilled with passports and used again in the manner described.
Although the cassette according to the invention requires passports to be introduced manually into the cassette, it permits automatic transportation of passports through a text-printing apparatus, in particular through a laser-printing apparatus, in an extremely straightforward manner since the passports arranged in the cassettes may simply be treated as large identity cards.
The invention is explained in detail hereinbelow, by way of example, with reference to the drawing, in which:
FIG. 1 shows a partially sectioned side view of a first configuration of the cassette according to the invention,
FIG. 2 shows a plan view of an empty, closed cassette according to FIG. 1,
FIG. 3 shows a view of the underside of the free border region of a swing-action frame of the cassette according to FIG. 1 in the direction of the arrow III in FIG. 1,
FIG. 4 shows a plan view of the corresponding border region of a base plate of the cassette according to FIG. 1 in the direction of the arrow IV in FIG. 1,
FIG. 5 shows a section essentially along line V--V in FIG. 3,
FIG. 6 shows a section essentially along line VI--VI in FIG. 4,
FIG. 7 shows a sectional illustration corresponding to FIGS. 5 and 6 with the cassette closed,
FIG. 8 shows a sectional illustration, corresponding to FIG. 1, of a second configuration of the invention, and
FIG. 9 shows a plan view of the closed cassette according to FIG. 8.
Components that correspond to one another are provided with the same designations in the various figures of the drawing.